Speculative Fiction—an all-encompassing genre created to describe stories of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and other stories that have an element of “What if...” in them. A story in speculative fiction is one that adds an element of the unreal, or asks, what would become of our society if history took a different direction at some important event? Fiction with a little something extra thrown in.—William D. Richards

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Monday, October 5, 2015

Devil's Thumb (The Immortals, Book 2) by S.M. Schmitz

Release date:

Subgenre: Urban fantasy

About Devil's Thumb:

After a fateful decision in Baton Rouge, Colin and Anna move to Boulder
where they hope they will get some much needed time off from hunting.
But the demons who wanted retribution in Baton Rouge have followed them,
and this time, they're not alone.

Excerpt:

The Angel tilted
her head, thinking. “They must be breaking the rules somehow, but we don’t know
how it’s even possible. They are supposed to be automatically summoned back to
Hell. Whatever they’re doing, they’re circumventing what was agreed upon eons ago,
but they hide from us just as they hide from you. We don’t know anything more
than you do right now.”

“Luca’s angel mentioned a war if this keeps
up. What exactly does he mean by war?”
Anna asked.

“A declaration
of war against Hell could be catastrophic. All of the rules we’ve abided by for
millennia would be wiped out, and they’d do whatever they wanted. But they are
already starting to do that, which is why we may not have a choice.”

“But you’re angels. You can’t fight back. How would
a war between Heaven and Hell even work?”

The Angel made a
sound that almost sounded like a weary sigh. “We can’t. We arm every hunter
with every gift we can, but ultimately, we can only stand by you.”

“And what about
these dreams? There’s no way you can keep them out of our heads? Stop these
dreams from even occurring?” Colin already knew the answer, but he had to hear
it from her anyway.

“No, the best I
can do is help pull you from those dreams, but I can only do that through the
one of you that hasn’t been lost. I couldn’t find Anna when she was in that
camp, just as you couldn’t. With these dreams now, as soon as you slip away and
you stop being able to feel each other, I stop being able to sense you as well.
I’ve been helping to wake you up but if they were to figure out how to get into
both of your minds at the same time …”

The Angel
stopped and watched them with a kind of worry and apprehension Anna and Colin
had never seen from her before. “Wait,” Anna whispered, “it’s not just
separating our minds then? The other night when I couldn’t wake up Colin … that
was real? If they get to us both, you could lose us, and we may never wake up?”

The Angel took a
deep breath, which must have been a habit of humans she’d picked up somewhere
because she probably didn’t need to breathe. “I would never stop looking for
you,” she promised. But it was all she could promise them. Knowing where their
bodies were would be useless; it wasn’t their bodies these demons were fighting
now. They had realized how indestructible Colin and Anna were and had found a
place they were still vulnerable. They were trying to steal their minds.

Colin leaned his
head forward, studying Anna’s fingers still intertwined with his. “And our
bodies won’t die for more than a hundred years. That’s a long time to be stuck
in Hell.”

The Angel nodded
in agreement and took one more deep breath before appearing in the pew next to
Colin and Anna. They jumped from her sudden presence next to them, but she took
their hands, which were still holding onto each other, and looked at them carefully, that love and compassion she’d always had
for them so evident in this new fear she had for the O’Conners’ lives.

“That’s exactly
what could happen, Colin. And the thought of it happening to you and Anna would
be killing me if I were mortal. So that’s why I came to let you out of your
agreement. Your service is over.”

About S.M. Schmitz:

S. M. Schmitz has an M.A. in modern European history and enjoys teaching
world history as well as writing. An avid reader, she delves into a
variety of genres such as paranormal, urban fantasy, science fiction,
dystopian, and young adult. Her novels are infused with the same
humorous sarcasm that she employs frequently in the classroom. As a
native of Louisiana, she sets many of her scenes here, and like Dietrich
in Resurrected, she is also convinced Louisiana has been cursed with mosquitoes much like Biblical Egypt with its locusts.

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